


You See A Thousand Of Me And This Is What I'm Meant For

by revenblue



Category: Milo Murphy's Law
Genre: Cavendish cameos at the end to be a CavenDICK, Dakota sacrifices himself for Cavendish: the fic, Gen, Lots of character death, POV Third Person Omniscient, all the Dakotas all of them, is there a tag for 'don't take this seriously but also take it seriously', what's the point of having all those Dakotas if you're not gonna kill 'em off I say
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:48:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25823893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/revenblue/pseuds/revenblue
Summary: Dakota had, er,misplacedCavendish. Which was fine, of course. He wasn't worrying. It wasn't like Cavendish tended to get himself killed at every opportunity.Who was he kidding?"Dakotas, we have a problem."
Relationships: Balthazar Cavendish & Vinnie Dakota
Comments: 8
Kudos: 13





	You See A Thousand Of Me And This Is What I'm Meant For

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by one of my favourite video games, Life Goes On: Done To Death. Not quite enough to be full crossover though.

Dakota, or rather, Dakota _Prime_ , had, er, _misplaced_ Cavendish. Which was fine, of course. He wasn't worrying. It wasn't like Cavendish tended to get himself killed at every opportunity.

Who was he kidding? He needed backup for this.

Getting into his time vehicle, he drove to The Island, where the evidence of his mistakes waited. And a whole lot of Dakotas. The two were, after all, one and the same.

"Dakotas, we have a problem."

* * *

"This is the place?" Sunburned Dakota asked, poking his head in through the old archway, _the place_ being an old abandoned railway that had presumably been completely wiped from existence by 2175. Even maps of it hadn't survived. Tracks led through and mostly under the city, inevitably filled with dead ends and also _dead ends_ for the waiting Dakotas.

And, apparently, one (1) Cavendish, potentially deceased.

Dakota Prime had of course tried to prevent this exact situation _before_ resorting to The Island. Alas, the timeline had proved stubborn, resisting every attempt to un-misplace Cavendish. Hence this current quest.

Gathering the other Dakotas around him, Dakota Prime explained the plan. "This place has some sort of temporal anomaly, and Cavendish is stuck in there."

"It's Cavendish, what are you gonna do?" the assembled Dakotas chorused.

"Exactly. So we have to make our way through, without time travel-"

"Shots not," Shirtless Dakota declared, and pushed his neighbour, Hairy Dakota, into the pit just beyond the entrance. Hairy Dakota died loudly and suddenly on the spikes at the bottom.

The Dakotas winced. "Shots not," Unremarkable Dakota echoed, which set off a chain reaction until the last one left was Chronic Liar Dakota.

Gingerly stepping forward, Chronic Liar Dakota looked over the edge. Hairy Dakota's corpse lay wedged onto the spikes. "Here goes nothing," Chronic Liar Dakota said to himself, and jumped.

To the shock of everyone, not least Chronic Liar Dakota himself, he survived.

He stood on shaky legs, Hairy Dakota's body a surprisingly solid platform, and glanced up to the awaiting Dakotas. "I'm okay!" he yelled, then overbalanced into the spikes _next_ to what remained of Hairy Dakota.

* * *

Sound, as it turned out, carried _extremely well_ in the tunnels. Better than Dakota had expected, having seen a lot of tunnels in his role as a time agent.

At the entrance was another surprising design feature. The threshold lit up in a pale blue whenever a Dakota had passed the threshold, disappearing when the Dakota in question met his unfortunate demise. Thus, even without the screams, it was easy to tell when a replacement was necessary.

* * *

After a few more Dakotas sacrificed to the spike pits, North Dakota and South Dakota looked at the blue gate, then at each other. "What if _multiple_ of us enter? Wouldn't that be safer?" they reasoned. Then, together, they stepped forward.

And promptly exploded in a shower of gore.

"Bad idea," Tiny Dakota said, barely phased. He, like all the other Dakotas, was used to unusual levels of blood, with what Cavendish tended to get himself into. And splattered across. "Looks like the whole place is locked down."

The endless procession continued after that, _firmly_ one at a time. No Dakota wanted to end up a bloody smear on the _outside_ of the railway.

* * *

A while later, the Dakota currently exploring the dungeon, Really Smelly Dakota, encountered the first switch. It shifted under his weight, raising a door... only to drop it as soon as he stepped off.

Above the switch was a sawblade.

"It's Cavendish, what are you gonna do?" he muttered to himself, hauling himself up onto the convenient ledge.

* * *

Not _all_ switches required constant weight, but enough did to require more Dakotas. Plural.

* * *

The waiting Dakotas lurked by the entrance, all trying to guess what fate had befallen whichever one had last gone in. Sometimes spikes, sometimes sawblades, sometimes even fire.

In one case, all they heard was a "Aw, what a cute little-" followed by a very firm _chomp._

"It's Cavendish, what are you gonna do?" they repeated as one after each death, to remind themselves why they were doing this. Sacrifice themselves was what they _did_. Cavendish was, inexplicably, worth it.

* * *

Cannons started showing up not long after, to fire Dakota corpses at high speed. The corpses were, alas, not yet corpses while they aimed at their target, death was merely the inevitable byproduct of the control mechanism's location _inside_ the barrel.

One Dakota did try to use existing corpses instead, but alas the controls were extremely sensitive and would respond to even the slightest touch of a limp body crumpling in on itself.

Many Dakotas were, hence, flung into walls and switches like ragdolls, opening door after door for those coming after, before, finally, a door opened to reveal what looked like a Cavendish. "I found him!" so-called Lucky Dakota yelled, hauling him out.

Alas, it was only a CavenDoppelganger.

Lucky Dakota, not so lucky as it turned out, was immediately sent back in for a second attempt. And died to an easily missed spike pit.

* * *

Crispy Dakota threw himself through a burning hot flame, in an attempt to leave a corpse on the switch on the other side, opening a door for the next Dakota. What little soot remained afterwards was barely enough to dust the top of the switch with, let alone hold it down.

As usual, more Dakotas were needed. Both to figure it out and to enact the plan.

"It's Cavendish, what are you gonna do?"

* * *

The solution, it turned out, a few Dakotas later, was for Skiing Dakota to freeze himself into a Dakotacicle. Shirtless Dakota, arriving shortly after, pushed the Dakotacicle through the flame, where he defrosted _just_ enough to be _warm_ and dead by the time he reached the switch.

That Shirtless Dakota stumbled into the flame in the process was a regrettable accident.

* * *

It wasn't long, or many Dakotas, before Botanist Dakota stumbled across a Cavendish... banana. He of course could identify the strain. Disappointment at not finding the Cavendish he was looking for crossed his face as he picked up the banana, which he then stashed in his jacket for later with a shrug. Why pass up a snack?

Later, Bald Dakota would see it poking out of his corpse's jacket and snag it for himself, with the exact same reasoning.

Second rule of Vinnie Dakota, never pass up a snack. The first rule, of course, involved Cavendish, and resulted in far more time in a day than normal with the same number of meals, hence the snacks.

* * *

Sending in Cannibal Dakota had been a bad choice.

* * *

The next Dakota, Unremarkable Dakota, had volunteered to be the replacement switch-holder for the body Cannibal Dakota had dragged away. A duty no one envied.

* * *

Morning turned to afternoon, then to night, as the remaining Dakotas dwindled. Hungry Dakota, an increasingly meaningless designation, scrounged for food nearby, to feed the in this case thankfully now much smaller army of Dakotas. An army that marched on its stomach far more than most.

All he could find was a plantation of, inexplicably, bananas. Specifically Cavendish bananas, just like the one the late Botanist Dakota had found. Not that any remaining Dakotas could identify them as such.

Thus a feast, of sorts, was had.

Then a return to the steady trickle of Dakotas, whoever took longest to call shots not, venturing into the temporal and spatial anomaly that was the abandoned railway. "It's Cavendish, what are you gonna do?" they all chorused each time the cavernous depths claimed another Dakota.

* * *

Metal Dakota met an unfortunate end to an unusually powerful magnet, his absurdly conductive body flung into the air and used to connect a circuit, to raise yet another door. Why any part of that design choice was made in the first place was anyone's guess.

* * *

Then there was the time Baker Dakota screamed, _followed by_ the sounds of shuffling feet. Normally, when a Dakota died, only silence was heard. Silence, or the sound of burning bodies _followed_ by silence.

The remaining Dakotas glanced at each other. The familiar refrain came easy to them, though few of them were left to say it.

On the plus side, with what they had to assume was zombification, their bodies could _walk_ to the switches now. Easier than hauling them by hand. A task they were all familiar with, as part of being Vinnie Dakota.

* * *

The soft downy harmless floor OF DEATH, another atypical design feature, claimed at least three Dakotas before Classy Dakota found another path. Probably because a bowl of pistachios lay on the other side.

Any chance to prevent the reoccurrence of the Pistachion takeover. Plus, of course, a snack.

* * *

And so it continued. One by one, the Dakotas entered the abandoned railway and met unfortunate fates until, eventually, only Dakota Prime was left.

One last chance.

"It's Cavendish," he said to himself, alone. "What are you gonna do?" Then he too crossed the threshold.

* * *

"What sort of time do you call _this_?" Caven _dick_ complained, as soon as Dakota Prime staggered into sight, beaten and bruised but alive. Only Dakota was beaten, specifically, because the abandoned railway had spat him back out at their shared apartment, Cavendish looking none the worse for wear. "Mr Block has a new mission for us - _pistachios_ again, what a surprise - and now he's going to be mad because _you_ couldn't even put in the _effort_ to be _here_."

"Yeah, glad to see you too," Dakota Prime sighed. And he was. _It's Cavendish_ , he told himself, _what are ya gonna do?_

**Author's Note:**

> Title from [Temporal Shenanigans](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gO2SMV0lY3U) by Rachel Macwhirter, because I ended up listening to it somewhere while writing this and realised it made a _really_ good Dakota song.
> 
> I honestly have no idea what Dakota sees in Cavendish. All I can see is contempt from Cav's side and that's just... theirs is not a healthy dynamic in the least. So yeah I took the opportunity to snark at that because I'm in third omni it's my _right_ to snark at the characters in third omni :P


End file.
